Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: Hortlund on January 28, 2003, 04:51:59 PM
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I would like to see the ability for each pilot to personalize his plane, much like the squads can today with the nose art, but on an individual level.
Im not talking about painting the aircraft pink or something like that (although Im pretty sure some might want to do that), rather the ability to add a name or a small heart/gun/playing card/whatever under the cockpit.
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Kill markings of the current streak would be cool.
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Both great ideas. Would be nice to have a "paint shop" to customize planes with "approved" schemes.
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I'd be happy with per-player noseart.
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Originally posted by Swoop
Kill markings of the current streak would be cool.
Seconded in a big way!!
Perhaps with player selected positioning, eg, on rudder, under canopy rail or on nose.
Blue
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The problem with individual art is the storage space required, and the amount of textures required.
For example, in a worst case scenario you could have 64 aircraft in one area all with individual textures. Then each player could potentially texture every aircraft, whats that 70 odd planes by 3000 players? 210000 stored textures. Everytime a new player came within view you'd be doing the WW2OL texture shuffle and watching your fps drop to 0.3.
It also lends itself to 'tweaking', if there were individual texture files how hard would it be to find Swoops individual textures and tweak em to some fluorescent pink?
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Vulcan, I dont think they mean completly unique textures for thier planes.
Just custom decal type things.
The current nose-art places almost no demand on any system, even 56k modems dont have any problem dealing with files that small.
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how about sybstitute?
live current squadron logo and add letters and numbers marking system?
each pilot have his own number and letter in squadron
(http://www.raf303.org/ramzey/ideas/markings.jpg)
that require only 32 bitmaps for letter and 32 x 4 color bitmaps for numbers /or more colors if need/.
every plane have place for numbers or letters /or allmost all, i have no idea how should this look for IJN and USAF/
Numbers can work on same system like squadron logo, mby more dificult;)
for LW planes
(http://www.raf303.org/ramzey/ideas/me109-plate4.jpg)
for RAF planes
(http://www.raf303.org/ramzey/ideas/spit-plate2.jpg)
now when u type AAR u can use "i was flying yellow 1" or "my spit DW-D" or "i shot dwn 109 marked red one"
imho much more simply system then personal logo and thousands of bitmaps
haw about that?
ramzey
ps. of course letters for aircraft historical marked by letters, and numbers for aircraft marked historical by numbers
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I think it would be great to have the ability to custom number/letter each aircraft in the squad. The number/letter could be assigned by the squad CO and be a primary key in the database to prevent same number/letter by two members of the same squad.
Something maybe more difficult would be to make squad colors available on A/C somehow. Perhaps by adding 3 color bands around the fusealage or vertical stab. The squad CO could then choose colors and they would appear on the squadron A/C.
Something that is very hard to do in the current MA is find the guy you want to kill. Many a battle have been fought where you know pilot X is in plane Y. You start fighting, but all the sudden 5 more of plane Y show up, and you have no idea who is who.
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I think kill markings would be cool, but instead of personalized aircraft, there should just be different skins you can choose for aircraft. For example, a silver or green p38, or differen camo schemes for desert, jungle, etc.
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The problem with things like numbers or even the current squad artwork is it's pretty much invisible at the ranges we usually fight at in AH. Sure it looks cool in screenshots, but in day-to-day flying it may as well not even exist.
In order to be visible at the ranges typically used in AH, something the size of an entire airplane texture is practically required.
I think it'd be a great feature to allow each player a SINGLE personal texture for ONE plane at a time--this would prevent everyone from having 30 different textures per player to download. If necessary due to download constraints, such textures could be made smaller in size than the "default" airplane textures (in other words use lower res textures for the individual artwork)--at combat ranges, such a lower rexture resolution wouldn't look much different anyhow and it'd do much to save on upload/download times. It's been done in other games (maybe not in a flightsim, but it HAS been done), so the tech is there.
Some sort of system could be invented to prevent players from manipulating the artwork of others.
Sure some players would doubtlessly prefer things like, say, bright red airplanes. My thought is that such should be disabled in the "ToD" arena, but is NOT out of place in the free-for-all MA (Classic).
J_A_B
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The only doable solution I can see given bandwidth and texture size limitations would be squad specific color bars, much like the normandy invasion balck.white bars on planes, but customizable for each squad.
This would be a ZERO impact on texture size since its just a color overlay, and would be very visable.
(http://www.combathanger.com/stripe.jpg) (http://www.combathanger.com)
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and we becom Circuis with clowns?
sorry this has nothing to do with history and imho looks colorfull but stiupid
ramzey
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By the end of the war there WAS a huge amount of variety in color patterns, at least in USAAF aircraft (IJA aircraft also seemed to display a large amount of variety). One could say that it DID almost look like a circus; Mustang paintjobs ranged from camo paintjobs to blue nose with silver bodies to red nose with yellow stripes to yellow nose with green bodies to silver bodies with red tails to all kinds of other variations. Certainly every airplane didn't look exactly alike as is currently the case in AH.
Despite the truth of that statement, the fact is the MA has nothing to do with history, so there is little reason to be obsessed with absolute historical detail in the MA environment. Remember, the MA is the Rook-Bish-Knight war, and who is to say that these (fictional) countries WOULDN'T let their pilots choose their own paintjobs? Strict historical realism is what ToD will be for, and presuably such a feature would be either turned off or greatly restricted in ToD. Strict--borderline unimaginative--realism should be back seat in the MA to fun. If some guy wants to fly around in an orange plane with purple stripes (and maybe a TYPE-R sticker for good measure), I say let him....It'd sure beat looking at the same bland generic skins all day long. I'd be good to get a laugh now and then :)
I'm all for the variety. IMO this is the sort of feature that would actually make a graphic upgrade worth it (I tend to be of the opinion that eye candy is worthless; but individual plane skins would be AWESOME).
Remember that AH2 will be TWO games; both the "gamers" AND the "simmers" can be made happy if HTC wishes to satifsy both crowds. There no longer has to be comprimises.
J_A_B
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Most planes in AH already have some sort of coloring on the nose/spinner and tail band/rudder. Why not be able to choose the colors. A P51 with say, a red nose and yellow rudder would be recognized from a reasonable distance and wouldnt look too ahistorical. The colors could be limited to certain shades chosen by HTC to eliminate neon pink/green planes, although that wouldnt bother me personally. Like ALF's idea, the download would be negligable since all you have to store is a set of RGB values. I think this is best used at the squad level since noone will remember more than a few color combinations. For instance, is every AK had his own colors I couldnt remember them all but I run into them often enough that I'd surely recognize their squad colors.
I like ramzey's idea for individual markings, but it would never be noticed unless graphics are improved so that we dont need icons. It would make for a good gimmick though, like the current squad nose art.
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You could just make the number/letter designation historical like il2. Then allow ramzeys example.
Then have the icons represent the markings as well
My squad 4./JG 53. thats 4 staffel 2nd Gruppen. So say I was number 7. 7 would be white so would the Gruppen mark -
Example
(http://bellsouthpwp.net/w/o/wotans/Info/exam.gif)
The icons would stay 2 colors like it it is now but The icon would read.
The Enemy icon would just be plane type or maybe a combination of plane type like we have now and then the designation say inside d1k.
friendly icons could be as follows:
WH (for white) 7 (plane number) + (country) - (gruppen) =
WH 7 + -
No range indicator, the color fades in to a darker color the closer you are. So at d6k its very light at d3k its darker but still transparent inside d1k its at it darkest color.
For AH2:ToD you could link the designations to the mission. So when you choose a mission slot you are given a designation.
Changing a few colors, or adding personalized designations or kill markings will never really be seen out side a few screenshots. But if we would want meaningfull personal designations I think it would be best to stick to something historical and not a bunch clown planes flying around. With the icon system I described folks could actually see your squad flying together.
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Originally posted by Innominate
I'd be happy with per-player noseart.
Ditto
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I like Ramzey's system, however with 1 change.
Two characters should be identical for all squad A/C and then a third character that is unique for each member
B4-T : Tango
B4-M : Midnight
B4-P : Pand
B4-B : Blacksheep
B4-S : Eagle
etc...
This way, if you see a plane marked B4-x you know it is the 412th FS
Originally posted by ramzey
how about sybstitute?
live current squadron logo and add letters and numbers marking system?
each pilot have his own number and letter in squadron
(http://www.raf303.org/ramzey/ideas/markings.jpg)
that require only 32 bitmaps for letter and 32 x 4 color bitmaps for numbers /or more colors if need/.
every plane have place for numbers or letters /or allmost all, i have no idea how should this look for IJN and USAF/
Numbers can work on same system like squadron logo, mby more dificult;)
for LW planes
(http://www.raf303.org/ramzey/ideas/me109-plate4.jpg)
for RAF planes
(http://www.raf303.org/ramzey/ideas/spit-plate2.jpg)
now when u type AAR u can use "i was flying yellow 1" or "my spit DW-D" or "i shot dwn 109 marked red one"
imho much more simply system then personal logo and thousands of bitmaps
haw about that?
ramzey
ps. of course letters for aircraft historical marked by letters, and numbers for aircraft marked historical by numbers
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Midnight
i think same, mby english not too good;)
Thats can be first 2 letters from squad name writed in squad name cell.
Squadron name cell /for example/
"RF 308th (Polish) RAF "Citty of Cracow"
"RF" will be used as squad letters on aircrafts
"308th (Polish) RAF "Citty of Cracow" in arerena buffer too as now is.
I was thinking about raf style of markings XX-Y
XX-squadron letters
Y- personal letter for each pilot
US planes have similar markings
ramzey
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Actually, I like ALF's idea a lot more.
I mean , honestly folks, when in the middle of a fight have you had time to admire what letters are written on the fuselage of a plane? Only a friendly plane in formation can see that. Heck, last time I saw the NOSE ART of any plane was .5 seconds before my P-38 hit a Lanc's nose from the 1 O'c position.
OTH, being able to costumize the color stripes on a plane so each squad can have its own (individuals cant) would be much more useful. Especially if each stripe is individually changeable.
We could see N1k's with its 9 stripes (3 left wing, 3 right wing, 3 fuselage) all pink and know its the FDB's.
Or a P47 with the 3 stripes on the left wing be blue and the 3 stripes on the right wing being red with the fuselage stripes being white and we would know its either Frenchy or Straffo :D
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The idea of the colored wings is kind of lame only because, if a certain color scheme is locked by only 1 squad, there will be a dozen squads out there with ugly color schemes...basically whatever color schemes were available late in the game.
But, you're definitely right...no one ever sees letters & numbers on an opposing aircraft, either. I mean, I initially liked the idea, but when you think about it, it's obvious that the custom letters & numbers would only be useful for a few screenshots. There wouldn't be any real use during combat.
If we want to know the squadron we're fighting against, Hitech could always add the squad name to the aircraft identifier. IE:
GHOSTS
F4U
1.1K
I'm not sure that people would want bigger identifiers, though. Just my 2 cents...
F4i
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since ah2 is going to have different player ranks why not just limit "personal" aircraft to people who acheive the highest rank...
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i second ramzey's idea.
To make it visible to others why not also have those numbers and letters a bit bigger on the wings? maybe not historical but visible
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Originally posted by Nilsen10
i second ramzey's idea.
To make it visible to others why not also have those numbers and letters a bit bigger on the wings? maybe not historical but visible
historical only on french planes, as i remember;)
but trully what for u need visible markings?
mostly /newbies/ players shooting from long range, no matter for them to who do they shoot;) con is con
Markings and personal marked skins are only for screenshots and better feelings of squadies. They looks good on pictures and give ppls fun when can review or make good pic to album. Thats looks nice when somone fly in close formation, and for that works great.
During fight is no matter how is marked con, special on MA
So, personal markings are only for players flying on plane marked like that. For enemy is no matter.
And more, historical i doubt was many reports of piolots about what number have shot down by him plane. Strips, roundels, tail or nose color yes, but number i supose not.
ramzey
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Not really F4i
Theres 9 strips in the above example pics.
There can be up to 24 or more colors per strip.
You do the math and see how many different combinations are possible :)
Its hard for 1 squad to run out of options...now that they would not get the colors they want, thats another story! But then again, you already have that kind of problem with squad names.There can only be one 13th TAS or one Flying Tigers.
And once people learn to recognize the colors of a certain squad (aka, P-47s with a french tricolor striping), they would definetely get the feeling of "oh****" or "oohyah easy kill" ;)
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You can just incoporate the the markings into the icon. No rainbow coalitions planes.
AH2:ToD isnt going to be without icons and if ht decides to redo this aspect then adjusting the icon so that it shows your "personal" markings will be the same as actually reading them on the plane.
Even with rainbow bright planes you really wont see that much when shooting them down. With an icon reflecting your markings you would say "Damn, a 109 marked as white 1, second group tore me a new one".
This also encourages more immersion and encourages folks to learn about the different airforce structures. Cartoon colors seem just silly so leave that out.
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i would like to see allies vrs axis with no icon... rotate the plane set so each country gets a go..rusian and italian could be third country as they forght on both sides
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I like ramseys idea too but also ad a few of the symbols they used like the group CO has a double chevron or triangle etc, there are an abundance of symbols to use as well as numbers and letters.
I think they should be kept as historical as possible. No player can choose anything other than the combination of a letter or symbol and the numbers of his squad etc.
As for colourations of aircraft again i really like the idea but we should maybe limit this to a choice of areas on the planes.
You can choose either a red nose cowling or a rudder,or maybe a tail band around fuselage but you cant change anything else.
this way we could have a chance of recognising who we are fighting. A large group of p51s with yellow noses would be as recognisable as f4uc's and f4ud's are now.
I often recognise a f4ud during a fight so i dont think it would be a waste of time.
ALSO and this is most important. ANY of these changes should be limited to SQUADS only of a certain size.If you only have 3 or 4 in your squad you are not able to have personalised skins.
This way it would be unlikely that the arena is flooded with different schemes.Only the bigger squads would have the different coloured noses or rudders.
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you got my vote for custom markings. red nose, blue rudder, UN squadron code for 63rd Fighter Squadron, olive drab paint or bare aluminum, and yes/no check box for invasion stripes.
You can see things like colored noses and tails and invasion stripes for quite a distance in AH. Squadron code letters may only be visible close in, but it adds a lot for me to look out and see the correct code letters on my squaddies' planes.
All of this information would have to be built into the game models, but could be transmitted quickly within just a few bytes whenever a plane comes into your FE's view (or even when it takes off).
Individual plane skins as seen here (http://www.56thfightergroup.net/63fs/screenshots/fb030401/form.jpg) are nice, but they tend to bog down a 10 player FB mission. I would hate to see several hundred player AH arena with individual player skins bitmaps. :p
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How about a big flashing neon sign above everyones plane. It is individualized, you can color corrdinate, and will give you something to read by when the sky is black and the moon is new.
I vote for individual noseart. Hell half my squad has noseart from a year ago and the other half aint got squat. Why not just let each pilot choose and everyone is happy.